Finding the light
by Torie Rilistkrytcat
Summary: I have changed. I have rebuilt my shattered world, stronger than before. I have discovered who I was, and who I am. And I know this: I am NOT Edward Cullen's toy. I am Bella Swan, and I am ready to take on the world- MY way. AU. Set during new moon.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight

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><p><em><strong>Prologue<strong>_

_**Once upon a time, there was a maiden trapped in a tower. All her life she wondered why, and pined for her handsome prince to rescue her. When he came, she thought that she was free. But, in fact, the maiden was disillusioned, and her so called freedom was actually still the tower, for she was still confined. The maiden did not realize this, and decided that the only thing better than this was if the prince took her away to his castle and made her a princess where she would live forever. She begged the prince, but he refused adamantly, stating that once she was a princess she would regret the simple life the tower held for her, as life as a princess was tiring and dangerous, and she would never be able to get out of it. The maiden did not believe the prince, and continued to beg. One day, the prince tired of the maiden's begging. He realized that she was only a poor maiden, thus beneath him, and all his love for her drained away. He fell silent whenever she spoke to him, and began to avoid her. Soon, he was unable to even sense her presence, so he left her and told her that he no longer wanted her, that he no longer loved her. It was only then that the maiden discovered that she was still in the tower. She also discovered the way out, into freedom, and realized that the prince was what had been keeping her in the tower all along.  
><strong>_So that's what I did.  
>I left the tower that my so-called prince had been trapping me in. There was no way I would ever find myself, discover who I really was, when that stupid so-called prince was keeping me in my own personal tower. And there was no way I would ever become a queen if I still yearned to be his princess.<br>I hope that prince turns into a frog. I hope a plague falls on his 'royal' family.  
>'Cause there are no such things as fairytales.<br>The handsome prince never came back, and the maiden grew bored and went off. She didn't live 'happily ever after', as most fairytales conclude. Nobody lives ever after, except stupid vampire princes. If any fairytale was true, then it would be the one above. Never trust your so called handsome prince, because he may turn out to be the dragon that needs slaying, the ogre who dreams of devouring you, the serpent that could crush you. If fairytale princesses had any sense, they would have married a farmer from a nearby village and forgotten the wretched prince with his empty promises.

Now, substitute the maiden for a (nearly) ordinary girl, the tower for a subconsciously frozen state of mind, the kind farmer from a nearby village with an auto-mechanic and the prince with a no good, two-faced vampire and you have my story.  
>It's no fairytale, but it's life. And now I'm going to tell you all about it.<p>

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><p><strong>Did you like it? Hopefully I can get the next chapter up soon. I have had this Idea for AGES! No, it's <span>NOT<span> a typical Edward-leaves-Bella-who-marries-Jacob type of fic! It's set during new moon, when Edward leaves, but Bella changes (her personality, not into a vampire.). She doesn't marry or fall for Jake, either. She is her own self, but really resents Edward. This might be quite a long fic.**


	2. Realisation

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight**

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><p>The faded sunlight disappeared altogether as a large cloud covered it. Yet it still shone mercilessly into my room, fighting against the iron-grey puffs that blocked it from view.<br>I didn't care. The sky could have been pitch black, yet I would have still stared aimlessly, dreaming.  
>Or was I waiting? I didn't know. I no longer knew my own mind. Then again, the mind didn't belong to me. It was Bella Swan's mind, and I wasn't Bella Swan any more. I hadn't been for months. Bella Swan was gone.<br>So who was I?  
>The sound of a door slamming interrupted my pointless thoughts. It didn't startle me; startled was an emotion, and emotions were strange and foreign to me now. the only thing close to an emotion in my mind was numbness; secure and pain-free.<br>"Bella?" Charlie's voice rang from downstairs, calling my name- or what he believed was my name. But I did not deserve to be called Bella- to take the name from a dead person. Bella Swan was dead- she had died, figuratively, in september, not long after her birthday. And then, the numbness took over her mind, replacing her identity as Bella with its pain-free solution.  
>"I'm here." the response was delayed. Not that Charlie would really notice- I hoped.<br>I heard footsteps, heavy and subdued, growing louder and louder until the door to my room creaked open.  
>"Hey, honey." his voice was quiet as he smiled meekly at my lifeless form, as though he didn't want to disturb something, or to rock the boat and upset me- even though the boat had already submerged. "How was your day?"<br>_I did nothing. I sat here, alone, as usual, unthinking and_ _pathetic_.  
>"Good." Another delayed response, and another one that was monosyllabic. Silly. Cliche. But it was enough, enough for Charlie, enough for someone who didn't understand about the poison that had quickly euthanised the late Bella's mind.<br>"Oh." He started towards the door again, knowing that he wouldn't get any more out of me. But once outside, he stopped. "By the way, Renee phoned."  
>That made me stop, and the thing closest to shock pushed at the numbness.<br>"Really?" Once again, my voice would have been blank, but I forced a hint of curiosity- fake, of course- into my tone. This was something that the old Bella would have been interested in, and I had to pretend to be myself again.  
>"Yeah." Charlie seemed to open up a bit more, now that I'd displayed some minor interest. He shrugged off his chief's jacket as he began to explain. "She said she called here, but no one answered. Did you go out at all today?"<br>I hadn't- hadn't even left this bed except to change clothing and go to the bathroom- but to admit that I hadn't heard the phone ring was to admit that I sat at my desk day in, day out, except for school, until Charlie came home; and I didn't want to upset Charlie that way. So I quickly forged a lie.  
>"Oh, yeah. I went to the mall for a bit. I needed to get out, you know?" It was completely false, but the chagrin had left me, so the blush that Charlie knew indicated a lie didn't appear, and I seemed honest. A true smile crossed his face then, and he enquired further. "Did you go with any friends?"<br>"Yeah... Jess, Angela, Lauren..." Another lie; not only had I not been there, but there was no way I'd enjoy a day out with Lauren, who had hated me ever since I came to Forks. But this one had some small element of truth; I had been offered to go on a shopping trip today via email, but I had only discovered about it a few minutes ago on one of my rare e-mail checks, and by then they'd have already been at the mall.  
>"That's good." Charlie, always the enthusiastic father, even when his daughter was practically brain-dead. "Anyway, Renee thinks it's best if she... comes to stay for a bit."<br>A small portion of emotion burst through the numbness, and my head snapped up. "What?" my voice was sharper than I'd intended, but I didn't care. "She's not..."  
>Charlie shook his head, running a large palm through his slightly-receding curls. "No, Bella." he assured me, and I sighed, drifting back into uncaring numbness. The last time Renee had come over, it was to take me back home- though I'd refused. I couldn't quite remember how I'd refused, but from the way Charlie tiptoed around the subject I assumed that I'd acted rashly.<br>"Oh."  
>Charlie sighed in exasperation. "She's coming sometime before Christmas. So we'd better make a space for her."<br>_Christmas_? My brow furrowed. "Dad, Christmas is ages away..."  
>Charlie laughed weakly. "Only two weeks, now, honey!"<br>_What?_ I almost said the word out loud, then stopped myself. It would upset Charlie if he knew I'd forgotten his favourite time of the year... Something stirred inside me, so tiny I barely noticed it at first. Was it... _guilt_?  
>"Anyway..." Charlie changed the subject. "Your vacation starts next week, doesn't it?"<br>_Probably_. "Yeah." Something I vaguely remembered was that Forks had an _insanely_ long Christmas vacation at the high school, reaching almost a month instead of the two weeks I'd been given in Phoenix. If vacation started soon...  
>"Well, honey, I had an idea. You've cooked so much lately- did you want to just order a pizza?"<br>A standard shrug, trying to seem normal. "Maybe." I didn't really have an opinion, truth be told. Food had become tasteless mush that I would stare at and ponder thoughtlessly instead of properly eating it. In the end, so Charlie didn't start fretting over Anorexia or anything ridiculous like that, I'd have to force it down, not enjoying any bit of it.  
>Charlie sighed. "You used to like Pizza."<br>"Used to?" I looked up suddenly, feeling the closest thing I'd felt to fear in a long time.  
>Charlie shook his head- obviously, he hadn't wanted me to hear him. "Never mind. I'll go order some- what flavour?"<br>I picked out the first one that came into my head. "Pepperoni." A standard answer, though I wasn't sure if I'd ever liked it before."  
>"Okay." Charlie said blandly.<br>Then he left me alone again.

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><p>When the pizza arrived, Charlie didn't call me down. Instead he knocked gently on my door, handed me the box, and then left again. I stared after him, wondering what was wrong. He seemed so... subdued, all of a sudden. Still, I opened up the box. The pizza was large, but I could always freeze some for tomorrow's lunch. I picked at the food for a while, then suddenly stopped.<br>_Used to..._  
>The words echoed in my head. Used to. Used to. Used to... like some deformed merry-go-round, they whirled throughout my head.<br>'Used to' sealed off the past from the present. If someone 'used to' think something, then they probably didn't think that any more. Somehow, the words had caused fear- an emotion, something I hadn't felt fully in a long time- to crawl back. But why? Why had they suddenly cracked the numbness in my head for just a brief second?  
>I didn't know. But I refused to care. Instead, I focused on the food I'd planned to stare at aimlessly then nibble at until it lost all flavour. But suddenly, it seemed appealing, and I found myself lifting a slice and taking a large bite. For just a brief second, I tasted it- the pepperoni, the cheese, the BBQ sauce... then nothing, just blandness again.<br>But I knew that once again, something had pushed away the numbness in my head for just a moment. I found myself wondering, actually _thinking_ whether it would go away completely. And suddenly, I knew why the words 'used to', such small insignificant words, had affected me so much.  
>Behind the sentence, I could hear Charlie's meaning; <em>You used to be Bella. But you're not any more.<em> And suddenly, though I hadn't even cared before, I didn't want to be an emotionless, subhuman person. I'd just let the numbness take over my mind- but what if I could get rid of it? What if I could bring back the real Bella?  
>What if those two, unimportant words already had?<br>Then something, so glorious I wanted to bottle it forever, hit me.  
>An emotion. Not just a flicker of something, but an actual emotion.<br>_Hope_.  
>"Hope." I whispered to myself, my voice almost inaudible.<br>And that's what did it. The numbness shattered apart, like broken glass. And Bella was there again, and I had a mind. I felt all the thoughts I'd neglected for so many months come back...  
>Then agony. It clawed at me in a motion so quick I didn't feel it coming. Agony... Pain... hurt... rejection...<br>With a gasp, I realised something. I was no longer numb, but I was still broken. And now that the numbness was gone, I could see something, as clear as glass.  
>I had to rebuild myself.<p>

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><p><strong>Ummm... did you like it? Was it moving too quickly? Was it boring? Please Review if you can- I need your opinions! Hopefully, I'll update it soon- I have the basic story planned out. Note: This is not the last chapter.<br>Thanks for reading!**


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